You hear it in many Indian commercials, especially children’s food ones. The word ‘healthy’.

But if you take a second to listen to how the word is pronounced, you will notice that it is said ‘healDhy’ – someone has started a very bad habit of switching the ‘th’ sound for a ‘dh’ sound. I am not talking about small companies’ ads – you will hear the same mistake in ads from major companies like Nestle and P&G. What is about this word that makes people switch the ‘t’ for a ‘d’? I don’t know – do you? If you know, tell us.

Interestingly, the pronunciation of English ‘th’ is different from the Hindi ‘th’ – and it very quickly separates the native speakers from the others. For the lesson on how to say it right, you will have to come to class. Meanwhile, remember, it’s healThy to say it right!

Easy right? :) We hope we helped you speak English just a little bit better today. If these few minutes helped, imagine how much you could improve in class. There are many more such common errors that we hear every day. We would love it if you could tell us ones that you hear.

Yes, ‘the’. It is one of the most common English words, and many of us sometimes pronounce it incorrectly. Are you shocked? Did you think it was impossible to pronounce ‘the’ incorrectly? Don’t feel bad – you are probably pronouncing it correctly about 50% of the time – because there are TWO ways to say it, depending on the word that follows. In fact, the rules are the same as for the use of the articles ‘a’ and ‘an’: If the word that follows ‘the’ has a vowel (a,e,i,o,u) sound at its start, ‘the’ is pronounced ‘thee’. If the following words starts with a non-vowel sound, ‘the’ is pronounced ‘thuh’. So, it is ‘theeapple’, ‘theeelephant’, ‘theeostrich’, ‘thee hour’ etc. And, it is ‘thuhbicycle’, ‘thuhcat’, ‘thuhzebra’ etc. Practice saying the examples out loud. Easy right? :) We hope we helped you speak English just a little bit better today. If these few minutes helped, imagine how much you could improve in class. There are many more such common errors that we hear every day. We would love it if you could tell us ones that you hear. Till next time, practice, practice, practice!